1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for the storage and recovery of digital data on video tape. In particular, the present invention relates to techniques for error correction of digital data which are particularly useful when employed during the storage and recovery of digital data on video tape media.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of video tape for the storage of large quantities of digital data originally stored or created on other media has become increasingly attractive. Conventional techniques for video tape recording and storage of digital data, such as the VIDEOTRAX.RTM. SYSTEM available from Alpha Microsystems of Santa Ana, California, are however susceptible to substantial data corruption. That is, the digital data often have unacceptable levels of error when recovered from the video tape storage media.
Conventional digital error correcting techniques assume a binary symmetric channel in which errors in transmitting successive digits occur independently. Data analysis indicates that such techniques are not optimizable for correcting digital data recovered from video tape storage.